#6 (500 words)

He grasped her right hand, caressed her knuckles with his thumb. The hand was tight-skinned, white-skinned, unadorned. Her defined joints were all she needed for decoration. He thought her fragile as her regarded the strange convergence of blue green veins at the nape of her hand. This excited him. A thin, white gold chain draped her wrist, shining over the bone. He thought- gaunt, haunt, taunt. He liked thin women.

His eyes traveled up her arm to her shoulder, to her clavicle. He imagined tracing that piece of her structure with an index finger, then his lips, then his tongue. He imagined mashing her into a primitive meal made up of marrow and blood.

He had asked her, on their first date, how she kept so fit.

I’ve always been thin. I have a fast metabolism but I still work out every day. Also, I am a vegan.

She wasn’t sickly looking. She didn’t look anorexic. And he did not find that type of bony woman attractive. He merely sought the hint of bones- prominent cheek bones, the feel of a hip bone below the inclining slope of abdomen, knobby knees…

She glowed from within. She possessed the slightest curves, but did not appear soft. Instead she was lean, her body efficient, and that is what he desired in women- efficiency. Efficiency and control. Coolness. He was drawn to the idea of bones; this brought him closer to her inner self, even if it was mere physiology, structure, rather than heart or spirit. Still it was below the surface and for this he felt like a deep man, a man seeking more in a woman than his peers.

Something about thin women brought to mind death. And he wanted to fuck death, tonight maybe in the ass. She seemed open. The only thing about her that bothered him was her smile. It ruined the stoic, reserved physicality of her face, which was diamond shaped, pale and round-eyed. Her smile was a bit on the horsy side, on the verge of silly. Death doesn’t smile, despite society’s caricature of the specter in black carrying a sickle. Death does not revel in itself. It is a calm state, it is tasteful. It just is. It just does. And he wanted to push himself inside, be calm.

His mother came to mind at this thought. She is dead. Alive, she was the most efficient woman he has ever encountered. Her hugs, too rare and almost too sharp, are what he searched for in each thin armed lover. She never wasted a word or kindness. When he was younger, he tried to overlook softness in women whose personalities were great, whose faces were almost lovely, except for a fullness of cheek or plump lips. But they were too warm and overwhelming.

Are you ready, he asked.

Yes, she said. Her blue-lidded eyes stirred his impatience. He took her home and mashed her pelvis.

skinny or no, you flesh out the characters populating your pages like NobodyElse’sBusiness, and that makes reading you a very rich experience.

all the people you’ve introduced to me, i’m curious about in a Glass family way. i mean to say like in Salinger’s chronicles, i’m not finished with your characters even when they themselves are finished. what are they doing now? what are they feeling now? what is their experience of your experience? what is their experience of the world.

visceral, yes, and brave.
i have only one thing else to add, and that is
more, please.

i’m pleased that you made it over here.
This is my ill-fed baby.

R asks me the same thing:
why not build these people a life?
i’ve no answer, though there are theories.